Federal wetlands regulators have dropped a bombshell on environmentalists with a little-publicized proposal to relax restrictions on filling in certain wetlands along the entire Mississippi Gulf Coast to speed recovery from Hurricane Katrina.

“It’s unethical, illegal, immoral, unsustainable and they’re simply doing it to make the fat cats richer faster,” said Derrick Evans, executive director of a Gulfport, Miss., community group that plans to fight the proposal by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The Corps’ proposal would allow property owners and developers to skirt the conventional "regional general permit" process for any projects that fill up to 5 acres of “low-quality” wetlands in the six southernmost Mississippi counties. Especially galling to environmentalists: The new process would also eliminate the requirement for public notice of such projects.